Environmental coalition challenges NRC on risk of HLRW pool fires yet again

IPS senior scholar Robert AlvarezIt's déjà vu all over again! After announcing a public meeting on August 22nd -- supposedly intended for technical dialogue -- the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) attemped to change the rules, and unabashedly refused to respond to watchdogs' challenges to its biased analysis regarding high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) storage pool fire risks. The strong backlash by representatives of an environmental coalition, inlcuding Beyond Nuclear, has forced NRC to try again. NRC has issued a public notice, as well as slides, for its Sept. 18th public meeting.

The coalition's attorney, Diane Curran, has re-issued talking points first developed for public use in the lead up to the previous meeting. They are more relevant than ever. Curran urges concerned members of the public to register to speak by emailing kevin.witt@nrc.gov. You can phone into the meeting at (888) 324-8193 [enter passcode 4345562], and can watch the webcast at http://video.nrc.gov or https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/984626536.

On August 1st, Curran, and one of the environmental coalition's expert witnesses, Dr. Gordon Thompson of the Institute for Resource and Security Studies (IRSS), submitted a "devastating critique" regarding NRC's "Draft Consequence Study" on the risks of fire in HLRW storage pools. Curran and Thompson called for the study to be withdraw, due to its lack of basic scientific integrity and credibility.

Now Robert Alvarez (photo, above left), senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), has weighed in on the coalition's behalf. Alvarez previously served as a senior advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Energy during the Clintion administration. After the 3/11/11 nuclear catastrophe began in Japan, he published a report on the potentially catastrophic risks in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant HLRW storage pools--the largest concentrations of hazardous artificial radioactivity in the entire country.

As U.S. Senator Ed Markey has pointed out in a letter to NRC Chairwoman Allison Macfarlane, a 2003 study written by none other than Macfarlane herself (along with co-authors Alvarez, Thompson, and several others) starkly contradicts NRC's current "Draft Consequence Study" regarding pool fire risks. Astoundingly, and at catastrophic risk, NRC staff is relying on the "Draft Consequence Study" as the basis to recommend that no expedited transfer of irradiated nuclear fuel should be required as a "lesson learned" in the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe. Beyond Nuclear and hundreds of environmental groups representing all 50 states have called for pools to be emptied into "Hardened On-Site Storage" (HOSS) for well over a decade, but their calls have fallen on deaf ears at NRC.

U.S. Sen. Markey slams NRC for biased study of HLRW storage pool risks

U.S. Senator Ed Markey (D-MA)On the eve of a public meeting at the agency's HQ in Rockville, Maryland, U.S. Senator Ed Markey (D-MA, photo left), a long-time congressional watchdog on the nuclear power industry and its supposed regulators at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has written a blistering letter to NRC Chairwoman Allison Macfarlane regarding NRC staff's "Draft Consequence Study" of the radiological risks of high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) storage pool fires.

Markey's letter references a "devastating critique" of NRC's "Draft Consequence Study" submitted on August 1st by Dr. Gordon Thompson, expert witness on behalf of an environmental coalition including Beyond Nuclear.

Markey points out the irony of NRC's current flip disregard of pool fire risks, given NRC Chairwoman Macfarlane's co-authorship of a 2003 study, along with several others, including Thompson, as well as IPS Senior scholar Bob Alvarez, that clearly exposed the potentially catastrophic fire risks of pool storage.

Beyond Nuclear to testify in Canada against radioactive waste dumps targeted at the Great Lakes shoreline

OPG's Bruce Nuclear Generating Station, and the proposed DUD1, are located just 50 miles across Lake Huron from Michigan's Thumb.Last month, Beyond Nuclear's Radioactive Waste Watchdog, Kevin Kamps, pre-submitted written testimony, as well as a Power Point Presentation, to the Canadian federal Joint Review Panel (JRP) regarding Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) proposed DGR (Deep Geologic Repository, or, more aptly, DUD, for Deep Underground Dump). Kevin will testify in person at the JRP proceedings in Kincardine, Ontario on Monday, September 23rd. Kincardine is the "company town" for OPG's Bruce Nuclear Generating Station, with a total of 9 atomic reactors (1 early prototype permanently shutdown, and 8 still-operable commercial reactors), one of the largest nuclear power plants in the entire world.

What can you do to help oppose this "declaration of war against the Great Lakes," this insane proposal to bury radioactive wastes on the shore of the drinking water supply for 40 million people in 8 U.S. states, 2 Canadian provinces, and a large number of Native American First Nations? Sign onto the Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Waste Dump online petition, and forward it to your friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, etc.! The petition has nearly 28,000 signatures--let's keep that number growing!

Angela Bischoff of Ontario Clean Air Alliance has organized an event in Toronto on Saturday, September 21st, entitled "From Fukushima to Ontario: Understanding the Current Nuclear Crisis." Kevin will present, as will Shawn-Patrick Stensil of Greenpeace Canada, and Don Hancock of Southwest Research Information Center. Don serves on Northwatch's DGR expert witness team.

Brennain Lloyd of Northwatch has also organized additional public events on Sunday, September 22nd (organized by Jutta Splettstoesser in Ripley, another municipality targeted for DUD2--see below) and Monday, September 23rd on the Lake Huron shoreline, focused on the proposed DGR nearby. Again, Kevin and Don will present.

"The DGR" that is subject to the current JRP hearings is often referred to as DGR1, as it could be but the camel's nose under the tent for DGR2. DUD1 is proposed for Ontario's so-called "low" and "intermediate" level radioactive wastes from 20 commercial reactors across the province. DUD2 would be for high-level radioactive wastes (HLRW, also called irradiated nuclear fuel) from Canada's 22 commercial atomic reactors (20 in Ontario, 1 in Quebec, and 1 in New Brunswick).

As shown by the Great Lakes Nuclear Hot Spots Map, prepared by the International Institute of Concern for Public Health's Anna Tilman, DGR1 is proposed for the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station site, less than a mile from the waters of Lake Huron. But DGR2 is proposed for the very same area. A half-dozen communities near the Lake Huron shore, mostly populated by Bruce nuclear workers, have "volunteered" to be considered for the national Canadian HLRW dump.

Those municipalities are already on the receiving end of millions of dollars in "incentives" in exchange for their support of the DUD1 proposal. Now, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) is also in negotiations with municipalities in that same area around Bruce regarding DUD2. The DUD2 targeted at the Lake Huron shore near Bruce is in competition with other "willing host" municipalities in or near the Lake Huron and Superior basins, further north and west from Bruce, municipalities further north in Ontario, as well as municipalities in Saskatchewan, as shown on the Great Lakes Nuclear Hot Spots Map.

NWMO, comprised of representatives from the Canadian nuclear power industry itself, has been charged by the Canadian federal government with finding a "solution" for the HLRW problem. Hence, NWMO's search for a DUD2 dumpsite. However, NWMO also took over control of the DUD1 proposal (to bury "low" and "intermediate" level radioactive wastes at Bruce) in recent years. This begs the question: will DUD1 and DUD2 be merged into a single DUD? The cost-savings of merging two separate but nearby DUDs, each costing billions or tens of billions of dollars to dig, makes this merger seem all the more likely, despite assurances by DUD1 proponents to the contrary.

A DUD3 has even reared its ugly head! It appears that OPG hopes to double the capacity of DUD1, from 200,000 cubic meters of "low-level" radioactive operations and refurbishment wastes, by adding another 200,000 cubic meters of "low level" radioactive decommissioning wastes.

DGR1 + DGR2 + DGR3 = a real DUD!

On a hopeful note, such DUDs can be stopped. Tom Lawson of Port Hope, Ontario has recently published a book (Crazy Caverns: How one small community challenged a technocrat juggernaut...and won!) about the successful grassroots resistance against a Lake Ontario shoreline DUD proposed, but stopped, in the 1990s.

NRC "Nuke Waste Con Game" draft GEIS published in Federal Register on Sept. 13, public comments needed by Nov. 27

An irradiated nuclear fuel assembly being moved underwater in a storage pool at a nuclear power plant. The blue glow is referred to as the Cherenkov effect.The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) Nuclear Waste Confidence draft GEIS (Generic Environmental Impact Statement) has been published online. It will now appear in the Federal Register on "Friday the 13th" of September, appropriately enough! The draft GEIS is nearly 600 pages long. In effect, NRC is saying "Let the (Nuke Waste Con) Games Begin!"

Beyond Nuclear has just published a backgrounder on the history of "NRC's Nuclear Waste Confidence Game."

Once the draft GEIS has been officially published in the Federal Register on Friday, Sept. 13th, a 75-day clock starts ticking. NRC will only accept public comments on the draft GEIS until November 27th. Please note, comments submitted before Sept. 13, or after Nov. 27, will likely be disregarded by NRC.

Public comments will be accepted by NRC through various means.

Comments can be submitted online at www.regulations.gov, using Docket ID No. NRC-2012-0246.

Comments can be submitted via e-mail to Rulemaking.Comments@nrc.gov, citing Docket ID No. NRC-2012-0246.

Comments can be snail-mailed to: Secretary; U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Washington, D.C. 20555-0001; ATTN: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff (cite Docket ID No. NRC-2012-0246 at the top of your comments).

Comments can be faxed to the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, at (301) 415-1101, citing Docket ID No. NRC-2012-0246.

Comments can also be hand-delivered to 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852, between 7:30 AM and 4:15 PM Eastern Time on Federal workdays; telephone (301) 415-1677.

Comments can also be made by way of oral testimony presented at a dozen public comment meetings to be held around the country from October 1st to mid-November.

We need to pack these meetings, so please spread the word!

The first and last public comment meetings, on October 1st and November 14th, will be held at NRC HQ in Rockville, MD. At these two public comment meetings only, members of the public can take part remotely, online via webcast and/or by telephone conference, and provide oral comments that way. (All other public comment meetings around the country must be attended in person only, in order to submit public comments.)

NRC has requested that participants in the public comment meetings register ahead of time. You can pre-register by phone at (301) 287-9392, or by filling out the webform at:

http://www.nrc.gov/waste/spent-fuel-storage/wcd/wcd-public-mtg-reg.html

If there is a large number of persons at a meeting seeking to make public comments, NRC will limit each speaker to 3 minutes. Although one can register on the day of, at the event, those who have pre-registered will be given priority at the microphone.

NRC has provided the following point of contact for any questions about the material in the GEIS:

Sarah Lopas; Mail Stop: 3WFN; 14C64; U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Washington, D.C. 20555-0001; Phone: (301) 287-0675; E-mail: sarah.lopas@nrc.gov.

Following are a number of basic, sample comments you can use to prepare your own written comments, and/or oral testimony for the upcoming public meeting nearest you. There is no limit to the number of times you can submit comments between now and the end of the 75-day public comment period. As Beyond Nuclear, as well as other organizations, further digest the 600-page GEIS, additional ideas for public comments will be shared widely. Please comment "early and often"! Public participation in this proceeding is vital, to show decision makers that people across the country care deeply about high-level radioactive waste risks.

For more information, contact Beyond Nuclear's Radioactive Waste Watchdog, Kevin Kamps, at kevin@beyondnuclear.org or (301) 270-2209 ext. 1.

SAMPLE PUBLIC COMMENTS:

1. Stop making it. The only solution to the high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) problem is to not generate irradiated nuclear fuel in the first place. Our society's "preferred alternative" to nuclear power and the forever deadly radioactive waste it inevitably generates is efficiency and renewables, such as wind and solar power. As Dr. Arjun Makhijani, President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, showed in his 2007 book Carbon-Free, Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap to U.S. Energy Policy, both fossil fuels and nuclear power can be completely phased out of the U.S. economy by 2040, and replaced by efficiency and renewables, without any further technological breakthroughs required, and for the same percentage of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as we currently spend on dirty, dangerous, and expensive fossil fuels and nuclear power.

2. For the HLRWs that already exist, require Hardened On-Site Storage (HOSS). Hundreds of environmental and public interest groups, representing all 50 states, have endorsed the Statement of Principles for Safeguarding Nuclear Waste at Reactors, which describes HOSS. Where possible, densely-packed, vulnerable HLRW storage pools, at risk of catastrophic fires and radioactivity releases, should be emptied into on-site dry cask storage that is "hardened": designed and built well, safeguarded against accidents, fortified against attacks, and protected against leakage into the environment. This should be expedicted as a national security top priority. Locations where HOSS is not safe (places vulnerable to flooding, for example), hardened dry cask storage should be done as close to the wastes' point of generation as possible, as safely as possible. HOSS must be monitored and retrievable, and is but an interim measure. HOSS cannot be a permanent measure on the sea coasts and fresh water sources (rivers, lakes, reservoirs) of our country, due to rising sea levels and risk of leakage into our vital drinking water supplies.

3. NRC's assumption that "indefinite storage" at reactor sites can go on literally forever, without a loss of institutional control, is absurd. As the environmental coalition's expert witness, Dr. Makhijani of IEER, has pointed out, one of the oldest continuous human institutions in the world, the Catholic Church, is only 2,000 years old. Plutonium-239, for one, will remain hazardous for at least 240,000 years.

4. Under its "indefinite storage" scenario, NRC has assumed that dry cask storage -- cask pads, inner canisters, and the dry casks themselves -- will be replaced once every 100 years, forevermore into the future. NRC assumes that Dry Transfer Systems will be built (and also replaced every 100 years), since pools will have been dismantled during decommissioning, by at most 60 years after permanent reactor shutdown. But NRC has not dealt with the very real risk that the irradiated nuclear fuel will so degrade with age that such transfer operations cannot be carried out safely or smoothly. This is especially a risk with "high burn-up fuel," that has spent more time in an operating reactor core, and is thus significantly more radioactive and thermally hot. NRC has also not provided the price tag for such future transfer and replacement operations.

5. It is inappropriate for NRC, in this GEIS, to use the Private Fuel Storage (PFS), LLC "centralized interim storage" proposal, targeted at the Skull Valley Goshutes Band of Indians in Utah, as a model for away-from-reactor storage. Although licensed by NRC for construction and operation, PFS was canceled in December 2012. NRC claims in its GEIS to observe Environmental Justice (EJ) principles, and yet PFS was a blatant violation of EJ. Nearly 500 organizations across the U.S. joined with Skull Valley Goshute traditionals urging NRC to disapprove PFS's license, due to its inherent violation of EJ.

6. NRC downplays the risks of pool fires by assuming that surrounding populations will be successfully evacuated. But nuclear utilities are allowed to store HLRW in pools for many decades after reactors permanently shutdown, in order to defer the costs of dry cask storage as far off into the future as possible, despite the inherent risks. At the same time, NRC allows utilities, via exemptions from regulations, to do away with 10-mile radius emergency planning zones (EPZs) within as soon as 12 to 18 months post-reactor shutdown. This, despite the lingering risk of storing HLRW in pools at such shutdown reactor sites. How can populations be evacuated, if EPZs have been dismantled?!

7. NRC also downplays the risks of pool fires by assuming that a pool drain down accident (or attack) involves the complete drain down of the pool. However, as environmental coalition expert witness Dr. Gordon Thompson of the Institute for Resource and Security Studies (IRSS) has pointed out, any technically competent person paying attention to the issue should have known since 1979 that a partial drain down of the pool is actually a worse-case scenario, for the leftover water in the bottom of the pool would block convection current air flow which would help cool the irradiated nuclear fuel, leading to faster heat up to the ignition point.

8. You can also comment to NRC about specific risks with HLRW storage pools or dry casks at the nuclear power plant near you. As a Generic EIS, NRC's current draft largely ignores site-specific risks.

House Republicans likely to grill NRC Chairwoman Macfarlane regarding proposed Yucca dump

NRC Chairwoman Allison MacfarlaneU.S. House Environment and the Economy Chairman John Shimkus (R-IL), and other Republican members of the subcommittee, are likely to grill U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Chairwoman Allison Macfarlane (photo, left) at a hearing on Tuesday, September 10th regarding her position on the long-moribund proposal to dump the nation's high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

The hearing comes after a D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel ordered NRC to resume the long-suspended Yucca dump licensing proceeding, despite the lack of adequate funding.

NRC Chairwoman Macfarlane has already submitted her written testimony.

Rep. Shimkus has multiple atomic reactors in his congressional district, and has long been a loud advocate for the nuclear power industry. Illinois has more commercial atomic reactors than any other state (3 permanently closed, but 11 still operating), and consequently more HLRW than any other state. IL has a whopping 9,000 tons of irradiated fuel, including 772 tons at the General Electric-Hitachi Morris pool, located next door to Exelon's Dresden nuclear power plant (2 operating GE Mark I BWRs) in Morris, IL. GE-Morris has stored HLRW from multiple reactors across the country for four decades. GE-Morris was to be a reprocessing facility, but never operated due to a major design flaw that risked large-scale radioactive emissions to the environment, had the facility ever fired up. Exelon, headquartered in Warrenville, DuPage County, IL, just outside Chicago, is the single largest nuclear utility in the U.S., with some two-dozen atomic reactors in its fleet.

It is likely that U.S. Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, will pop in for the hearing, as he is an ex officio member of the subcommittee. Upton has long led the charge in the U.S. House for opening the Yucca dump over the objections of the State of Nevada, its U.S. congressional delegation, and the Western Shoshone Indian Nation. Upton himself has three atomic reactors in his congressional district (Entergy's Palisades unit, and the two reactors at American Electric Power's Cook nuclear power plant). Entergy Nuclear, which has a "dirty dozen" atomic reactors in its fleet, is one of Upton's top campaign contributors.

One of Upton's and Shimkus's top committee staffers, Annie Caputo, is a former Exelon Nuclear lobbyist.

Pro-dump advocates are calling for Macfarlane's recusal, given her co-editing of the book Uncertainty Underground: Yucca Mountain and the Nation's High-Level Nuclear Waste, a critical compilation of technical analyses of the dump proposal. Macfarlane is a Ph.D. geologist. The State of Nevada, for one, has defended Macfarlane's right to remain involved in the Yucca licensing review. After all, she has been subjected to U.S. Senate confirmation hearings twice, and found to be worthy of chairing the NRC.

The calls for recusal are quite hypocritical. Other NRC Commissioners, such as William Magwood IV and Christine Svinicki, have long advocated in favor of the Yucca dump, while working in the industry and for a Republican Member of the U.S. Senate, respectively. In fact, Svinicki worked on the Yucca dump while employed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), a conflict of interest she did not reveal during her U.S. Senate confirmation hearings, much to the chagrin of U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Chairwoman of the Environmental and Public Works Committee. Despite all this, Yucca dump advocates have not called for Magwood or Svinicki's recusal from the Yucca proceeding.

Macfarlane's predecessor as NRC Chairman, Greg Jaczko, was despised by the nuclear power industry for his anti-dump work on Capitol Hill (as a top staffer for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), as well as a science fellow for Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA)). The industry forced Jaczko to recuse himself from Yucca-related matters for his first two years (2005-2007) as a Commissioner at the NRC. Jaczko's order, as NRC Chairman, to suspend the Yucca licensing proceeding at NRC, given the Obama administration's zeroing out of the budget for the project, was the final straw for the nuclear industry and its champions in government: they demanded Jaczko's head. Upton conducted "witch hunt" hearings on Jaczko at the end of 2011. He eventually resigned under pressure in the summer of 2012.

Peter Lyons will also testify at the hearing. Lyons heads the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy, in charge of promoting the industry. Lyons was formerly an NRC Commissioner, as well as a top staff aid to U.S. Senator Pete Dominici, one of the most pro-nuclear members of Congress of the past several decades.

Update on September 14, 2013 by admin

The Hill has reported on this story.